Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out | Hacker News Reader

Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

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67 pointspwenzel53 comments

Avid public radio listener, WBEZ member.

I guess I'm not opposed to scaling up program underwriting, but I wonder what it is about the structure of NPR and program buying that prevents shows like Ira Glass's TAL from just making their money on "the back end".

Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. As radio shifts from FM to the Internet, local stations will matter less, and NPR/PRI will increasingly become a Knight Foundation-like seed fund for new shows.

The ones lucrative enough to raise extra money can use all of the tools of the Internet to monetize and expand.

> Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last.

I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars? In Wichita, KS, I'm lucky to get cell data service before I'm a mile out of the city.

Maybe I'm reading too much into an "FM Radio will not last" interpretation.

I've switched to listening to NPR exclusively using podcasts. I do find I'm behind on current events though, even major ones, such as riots, but I attribute that to me not having added any current event shows, such as morning edition, which I believe also comes in podcast form.

I use Pocket Casts for android to handle automatic downloading of specific sets of podcasts when my phone is on wifi and plugged in, out of the larger set I've decided is interesting, so getting the content is really a non-issue for me (and I wholeheartedly recommend Pocket Casts!).

It's worth noting that my lack of awareness of current events persists even though I get a good dose of random pop radio in the morning while dropping my children off at school, so I don't attribute that problem as much to a lack of FM radio as I do to a lack of news radio.

You're also missing local news and much of the mid-tier state news. That doesn't always matter, but when it does, it really does.

Instead of the "directly-streamed linear programming" model, you could do radio audio broadcast the same way you do GPS: just have the local radio towers spraying some selection of podcasts on a loop (with high enough frequency+bandwidth+compression that the effective audio rate is faster-than-real-time, unlike satellite radio), and then have "radios" in cars (or wherever) which catch the files and cache them.

You can build whatever you like on top of that—a hybrid device that will siphon up local OTA content along with arbitrary podcasts when it can find 4G, and then intelligently arrange the combination into linear programming, for example. (Really, though, you're just creating a weird sort of secondary internet that only allows retrieval of files relevant to the local area. In fact, you could make the "radio" into a 4G picocell that actually re-serves said limited internet to your phone, where the OTA content then shows up in your regular podcast app.)

Effectively, this would be the over-the-air equivalent of how pay-per-view (not video-on-demand, the older one) worked, but with the client device then acting as a set-top box to turn the received broadcasts into something equivalent to video-on-demand.

This would also be equivalent to how the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview received game programs.

That sounds super complicated compared to good old FM radio.

You're imagining FM radio as some magical simple system that turns audio files into airwaves. But guess what's in the middle? People. People making decisions about what airs, in what order, on a very limited amount of real-time audio band.

This would move that decision-making to the client device, which could follow any algorithm the user preferred. There would be no people "working" at such a radio station. It would just be a box out on a hilltop with an antenna, retrieving files from an S3 bucket and spraying them—a bit like a numbers station.

Now, there might be some curation going into what counts as "local content" for the box to download and broadcast, but it could be algorithmic or just economic. Picture something more like the "curation" that Public Access television gets: anyone who wants to show up at the station and book a booth for an hour for a fee can have a "TV show." In the same way, anyone who wanted to hand the maintainer of the box an RSS feed of their podcast could have a "local radio program" that cars could receive.

The key, here, is that there would be an unlimited number of such "local radio programs."

Don't imagine radio as it is today. Imagine driving into the vicinity of a city and "picking up" the YouTube channels of everyone who lives there.

This sounds like a ton of work to do what FM already does reasonably well; if anything I'd like to see the amount of funding, variety, and _bandwidth_ for public radio increased, hopefully breaking some of clear channel's grip. I know everyone likes technologically advanced solutions, but honestly for anything that isn't straight broadcast, such as your suggestion above, the amount of work needed to workably implement it on the surface appears huge; why replace what just works with something else that doesn't have a immediately distinct advantage?

You technically could, but wouldn't the complexity and the cost of migrating over to a system like that completely outweigh the benefit you could reap? Think of all the cars that only have FM/AM tuners, and all the stations that would lose listeners the moment they transition their programming model over.

Not to say its a totally awesome idea in terms of features and functionality. The amount of inertia it takes to move away from a proven technology wouldn't let such a system see the light of day.

That's not how GPS works.

I think a nice change for FM (and AM), rather than going away entirely, would be to turn over the bandwidth cheaply or freely to public radio, non-profits and other small time operators, maybe like college radio. I think it would be an excellent way to introduce more diverse and interesting programming without being totally beholden to the lowest common denominator, and kind of get away from the awfulness that is clear channel. Also having a more community focused bent would work wonders; CPR makes NPR even better around here (Northern Colorado), as it's not just national news, and you get a lot more really local stuff (including music). I think there's still a niche for FM out there, as I certainly enjoy listening to the lower end of the dial on my commute, as do many people I know.

> I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars?

Time-shifted listening, like e-books, podcasts, etc. The real question is, why listen to Prairie Home Companion on their schedule.

By the way, that's the killer app for FM in mobile phones: Time-shifting shows that are not available for downlaod.

NPR sees itself first and foremost as a news organization, and I don't see that changing any time soon. Even if radio shifts from FM to Internet, there will always be a place for local news reporting and discussion. And that shift itself is probably still a long time coming. We HN types often forget that there are millions and millions of people who prefer to have Rush Limbaugh and others shout the "news" at them via pickup truck radios. There are still a lot of people who don't even know what a "podcast" is.

The thing about pledge drives and member supported radio is that it's almost completely free and without obligation. No matter how much money a standout hit like TAL can make from underwriting, why would he ever stop asking people for money if they're willing to give it to him in record numbers year after year? I'm sure that WBEZ places some restrictions on their programming in return for using the public radio brand to solicit donations, but I doubt that it's anything onerous. FM radio, streaming, podcasts, it's all the same to the content creators of the individual shows. More underwriting will allow them to do larger things, but if that dries up for whatever reason they can just continue to make money directly from their fans.

Public Broadcasting is like an Eternal Kickstarter. People will give you "donations" in return for a product, not just once, but every year for as long as they use your service. And they don't ask for any equity or voting rights or profit sharing, and you can sell ads to make extra money if you'd like. It's the best situation for a business to be in.

>Public Broadcasting is like an Eternal Kickstarter.

So, like Patreon?

Public radio is a mixed bag. It's better than most but I dislike the pretense of being better, because in my view they are only marginally better when presenting news.

One of the things I'm most disenchanted with is how on uncontroversial things they'll offer an opinion. "lack of oversight is bad". But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questions and loading their questions. So when it comes to controversial subjects they take a position, but they try to hide it, which, to me, is more perverse than the blatant left and blatant right, who at least aren't pretending to be objective. That's to say nor, while marginally better, comparatively, isn't all that good and show bias in their reporting and choice of news.

For example, the strife in some inner cities was cast as police vs population when in reality government is at greatest fault. They put the police there to mop up after their failed or non existent policies to better peoples desperate lives. So the police are their last desperate attempt at controlling a situation for which they fell asleep at the wheel then blast police for the situation.

> they take a position, but they try to hide it

Of course they do. That's what the public actually wants when they say they want "intelligent reporting"—an opinion they agree with that they can pretend is unbiased fact-based reporting. (It's the same idea as sarcasm: it's a display of intelligence to be able to signal one thing to your friends and another to the general public.)

True fact-based reporting, on the other hand, gets blasted by both sides of a debate for "supporting the other guy"—because any statement that's not explicitly in favor of them, even a statement making an orthogonal point, is against their agenda.

> the strife in dome inner cities was cast as police vs population when in reality government is at greatest fault

Most problems come down to systems of incentives spiralling out of control when nobody is watching, that create principal-agent problems when agents do what the incentives tell them to do. My favorite piece of NPR is Planet Money, because economists tend to at least be attuned to the "incentives" framing for most subjects, even if all they get to talk about is monetary incentives. I'd love to see regular reporting done by economics-trained (and maybe game-theory-trained) journalists, though.

NPR: quietly polite apologists for the status quo.

I heard a really outrageous example of that the other day. They were doing a piece on migrants from Africa traveling to Europe. The NPR reporter brought on a British professor of international studies for an interview. The professor says, "There is a perception that immigrants hurt wages. But lots of studies now show that is not true." This statement went completely undisputed, it was reported as fact. No person of an opposing viewpoint was interviewed. I have looked at some of those studies. Lots of fancy math - but math only reflects the assumptions you put in. One paper I read stated as one of its assumptions that economic growth would be proportional to the number of migrants, and then based on that assumption proved that immigration would not hurt wages! It is pure intellectual dishonesty to cite that result out of context as proof that migration will not hurt wages, since the assumptions on which the paper is based are completely unproven.

> The professor says, "There is a perception that immigrants hurt wages. But lots of studies now show that is not true." This statement went completely undisputed, it was reported as fact.

This seems almost universal. Do you know of a media outlet that doesn't do this?

I would genuinely like to know because this infuriates me. When organization/government/company X is caught up in controversy, if I wanted to hear what they have the say, I would read their press release. What I want to know when I consume news is: who is lying to me?

All too often there are two people who are claiming contradictory facts. Any news outlet that reliably and consistently tells me which one is the liar gets my eyes and ears.

Do you have any evidence that the result you found was the result this professor was citing?

It's not generally possible to gain an understanding of a field by "[looking] at some of those studies". This is why graduate students spend hours every week doing literature review. It's why news stations get an expert in the field to comment on a topic. Such experts can never be completely free of bias, but the idea that every expert should be coupled with someone with an opposing viewpoint (and if there's consensus in the field on the topic, who?) is ludicrous at best.

Such experts can never be completely free of bias, but the idea that every expert should be coupled with someone with an opposing viewpoint (and if there's consensus in the field on the topic, who?) is ludicrous at best.

I actually think reaching some goal of being "bias free" is neither possible nor desirable. I would have had a less of an issue with that NPR segment if they had only presented one side - but it was the side that I thought had the most accurate view.

My problem with citing "studies" was not just that I had read that one lousy study. My problem is that virtually all these studies are inconclusive at best, since you cannot do controlled experiments, you cannot generalize a study of one immigrant group in one situation to other groups, etc. So citing "studies say" as some kind of world of God is ridiculous.

Exactly. Like when they find it almost painful to call out Isis/isil as bad. They do but it pains them to take a side when it's obvious there is a side. But then if someone they have an obvious stance against, they have no issue calling them out, say Russia vs Ukraine. I guess they feel safe calling out Putin. There are fewer "allegeds" qualifiers.

On the other hand, what other broadcast news outlets are dedicating any time (much less 7 or 8 minutes as many interviews on NPR can run) to a discussion about the implications of African migrants traveling to Europe?

In my experience, many of the discussions on NPR involve more than one voice in the conversation and the host allows those guests to say their piece, intervening when necessary (in the case of dodging a question, for example) but not getting in the way of what the individual has to say. Still picking apart the details of an argument but not harping on a single quote or factoid. It's part expediency but also part of what makes NPR enjoyable to listen, more time given to make a case, less time spent arguing or trying to suss out some marginal point of a larger conversation.

> But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questions and loading their questions.

I disagree with this as a general characterization. I do think it's true that NPR presents a neutral facade while most of the hosts and commentators harbor leftist views under the surface (or in their public life), but I think in general they make a pretty good effort to present both sides of an issue without demonizing one side, and I think this is especially noticeable during the discussion of controversial ideas. A big difference between NPR (i.e. radio on the left) and the rest (i.e. conservative talk radio) is that the standard for debate on NPR is "a veneer of respect"; this doesn't mean that debates don't get heated or at times end up lopsided, but you won't find NPR hosts openly lambasting conservatism as a mental disease, or referring to right-leaning callers as morons or unpatriotic or terrorist supporters or really anything along those lines. NPR is very far from perfect, but IMO they at least shoot for an ideal that keeps the dialog open for discussion.

> but they try to hide it, which, to me, is more perverse than the blatant left and blatant right, who at least aren't pretending to be objective.

I don't think they're trying to hide it, it's more that their journalistic ethos ostensibly respects the idea of neutral reporting, thus keeping partisanship at least within the range of plausible deniability, similar to how agents of the government give constant lip-service to the ideals of the constitution but regularly run around it in practice or in spirit when it suits their needs. It's true that many of the politically elite don't respect the constitution, but some really do and the rest have to at least pretend like they do whenever possible because that's the ideal that the people want to be true. Journalism is similar; pretending to be unbiased does produce reporting with less bias.

I agree on some of what you say. However, I disagree with the interpretation of the result. On the surface that veneer is tantalizing, but in actuality it's more damaging than blatant leftists and rightists. Do you recall the Movie "They live". It's like that. Insidious. Pretends to be nice and psychologically it's more sophisticated, but also more believable and people tend to give their pieces more credence with less critical questioning than say a Fox news or MSNBC, because they mask it well.

But as I said in other comments, they're the best available option (to me), but that does not mean they are a good option. so long as you keep your ears open for their biases, they're okay to listen to.

I think your description is an accurate portrayal of one particular host on NPR who runs a discussion/talk show (Ashbrook), but it's unfair to cast that brush across all their shows; certainly NPR News does not do what you describe.

Off the top of my head, a news item about water conservation. One guy, perh some official, stated, paraphrasing here, that it was ridiculous given the drought, that we had not started curtailing the offering of free water at restaurants earlier, making the audience believe that this step was a cornerstone of conserving water. It's not credible, but the host agreed and didn't question the reasoning.

Ok sure, I grant you it's an "awareness" device, but a mechanism for conserving water it's not.

Also, they trot out the trope about almonds using vast amounts of water... Yes, they do, but do does everything else. Did they get into the vast amounts of water or takes to produce a liter of wine? No, of course not.

These both seem like incredibly niche objections. They're not somehow in bed with the anti-almond, anti-ice water lobby. I'm not saying they don't run a lousy report now and then -- that obviously happens.

Oh this kind of occurrence happens every morning. I still listen to them because they are marginally better than other news and much better than jocular morning shows.

> the blatant left and blatant right, who at least aren't pretending to be objective

You mean like when they adopt taglines like "Fair and Balanced"?

Yes. Like in the ussr, everyone knew Pravda was a farce. Few people bought it wholesale. They knew what it was. There was no thinking it was truthful. Same for fox.

It's the entities who try to pass as unbiased that you have to be careful about. Fox and cnbc one knows where they're coming from. Just like Pravda.

So Fox and Pravda are better because they're worse? Do I have that right?

Yes because they are upfront about it. You know what you ate getting --which is blatant propaganda. Everyone knows this. With NPR they have people believe they are unbiased and have no ideological framework. It's way more subversive, because for most inane things they appear unbiased so when they want you to buy into something you are predisposed to believe their delivery.

Take a good liar. Do they lie at every occasion? No, for the most part all they say is plausible and they use that believability to their advantage. Note I am not comparing NPR to liars, I'm comparing the phenomenon.

> For example, the strife in some inner cities was cast as police vs population

That is, in fact, who the strife was between.

> when in reality government is at greatest fault.

The police are the government. And, in the case of Baltimore, where the triggering event was murder by police as part of an extended pattern of physical abuse by police, its pretty clear that they were the proximately responsible part of government.

To the extent that there are a myriad of other factors, including other government policies, which could be argued on to have contributed less proximately, they were widely discussed by the media

I think that's obtuse. By that measure the police are part of the community and the community is part of government. Obviously you understand that the government uses the (blunt force of and in the shape of the) police to keep the peace because the community asks for help combating rampant crime.

The government takes an easy shortcut and instead of trying to solve the source of social, economic and cultural problems sends in the police as the only expression of government and thus the police are in the unenviable position take the full brunt of the backlash against an inattentive and perhaps negligent government.

That's a lazy cheap and untenable form of governance. It's like understaffing an IT department and the when the breaches happen blaming the IT security staff, a la Sony.

It's not bad policing so much as bad governance. the police are the main symbol of this "government" in the community, so they take the fall.

Folks seem to forgotten what happened to the Appalachian Community Service Network. We know it as TLC and while a fortune was made off of honey bobo the folk in Appalachia still have one of the lowest educational levels of working Americans. As much as I love capitalism you have to admit it does not play well with the commons.

I don't know that you could count on TV programming to have an appreciable impact on education levels. Additionally, TLC was good for years before it fell into reality show garbage, so it's not like the lack of results is the fault of capitalism.

Naive question... with the influx of cash from larger and larger underwriters and the public funds becoming a smaller and smaller % of overall funding how does public radio handle the natural tendency to chase the big funds?

What's the % breakdown today? I don't think it's evil, but when 80% of funding starts rolling in for projects like invisibilia I could see it as tempting to head more into a "reality show" type programming to chase big donors / big audience... again, that's not to say that is wrong... but it certainly isn't the mission.

Big dollars brings big pressures.

The key is to limit advertising to the point where there is always demand for the spot, and/or not reliant on major sponsors.

eg. If coke is willing to spend $15 million and pepsi $10 million if you sell the ad to coke for $10 million you know you can always sell to pepsi for $10 should you piss coke off.

Ideally you should have a bunch of smaller advertisers such that it's easy to find another person to take the spot.

It's an issue for any business and something DHH talks about regarding not getting big clients which you inevitably end up becoming beholden to.

Thanks. That's a great explanation.

This strikes me as naive and wishful, bordering on ignorant. Perhaps /he/ knows how to act ethically and idealistically despite relying advertising money, but he must see how the entire remainder of the news/media industry is not able to do so. This suggestion comes at precisely the wrong time, when the ideal that media should be for a common good is utterly gone beyond lip service now and then.

Does anyone here know of fundraising systems or lists of different micro-economic models?

Hard to take the message seriously when his show, This American Life, is so incredibly bland. In my appraisal, it does nothing but pander to its "middlebrow" audience, never daring to tell them anything they don't already know. Maybe he's just not aware of it.

Do you listen to TAL much? I ask because if you find it bland when you do, I can't imagine you listening to it much, and if you don't listen to it much, I'm not sure I trust your appraisal to be accurate. Not every episode is interesting to me, so I skip some, but others I find extremely interesting (Radiolab, Planet Money and Freakonomics are my bread and butter NPR shows). To me that just indicates that have a fairly wide set of topics.

Generally I find they try to go fairly deep on both sides of topic where they can, or at least put disclaimers in that there may other explanations for what they are reporting. The recent multi-part set on police is a good example, they spent a fair amount of time talking about the police perspective on some recent events, and how and why it diverges from public opinion. To me, assuming it's pandering to a "middlebrow" audience would have me believing in a much more informed public than I think actually exists.

>Radiolab, Planet Money and Freakonomics are my bread and butter NPR shows

It's interesting that you list those three (excellent) shows as examples. Only Planet Money is actually produced or distributed by NPR themselves. Radiolab and Freakonomics are both productions of WNYC.

I imagine it's not quite as simple as that. I imagine NPR member stations that broadcast those programs kick back some portion of their donations/underwriting to help fund them, and that gets passed along to WNYC/Radiolab/Freakonomics. I know there are some programs that bill themselves as joint ventures of the local station and NPR, PRI, or APB.

>if you find it bland when you do, I can't imagine you listening to it much, and if you don't listen to it much, I'm not sure I trust your appraisal to be accurate

I've heard enough of it to form a decent impression. I don't agree with that kind of argument, otherwise no one would ever be able to criticize any piece of media for any reason.

I tried to make it clear that my statement was predicated on whether or not you've listened to it much. Not because it's impossible to be correct in your appraisal of something with little exposure, but the weight I give your opinion is a function of both your exposure to the topic, and the variation the topic exhibits. I think TAL has quite a bit of variation in message, topic and to a lesser degree quality. I don't think limited exposure will, in the average case, produce very accurate opinions about it. Of course, I don't truly know how much exposure you've had (which I also tried to allude to by using "I can't imagine," which is meant to be left open for correction).

Like how this week they interviewed a black man who when asked if his young daughter's nascent understanding of the history of racial relations in this country might alienate some of their white acquaintances and he replied "I don't really care about the emotions of the white man in this country; perhaps they should spend some time thinking about things they enjoy that no one else in this nation can."

That's not daring to present a viewpoint at which the show's white bread audience might bristle? What about the show that was generously interpreted as positing that perhaps certain individuals were on disability insurance because they had been left behind by the economy and this isn't a judgment of them but rather of our lack of any other option for those individuals? The not-generous interpretation was that it was shining a light on disability fraud, essentially punching down. I guess that wasn't a challenging issue for the listeners, either.

Or the whole debacle with Daisey. Yeah, they just glossed right over that.

> "I don't really care about the emotions of the white man in this country; perhaps they should spend some time thinking about things they enjoy that no one else in this nation can."

Thats exactly the sort of thing that I imagine NPR listeners would like to hear, so they can nod their heads and feel progressive

This American Life is not an NPR show.

>That's not daring to present a viewpoint at which the show's white bread audience might bristle?

Did you bristle at it?

>What about the show that was generously interpreted as positing that perhaps certain individuals were on disability insurance because they had been left behind by the economy and this isn't a judgment of them but rather of our lack of any other option for those individuals? I guess that wasn't a challenging issue for the listeners, either.

Was it a challenging issue for you? I.e., prior to the episode, you believed that everyone on disability insurance was lazy?

> Did you bristle at it?

Point taken.

> Was it a challenging issue for you? I.e., prior to the episode, you believed that everyone on disability insurance was lazy?

No, but I did generally assume they had something so debilitating they were incapable of working. The show basically pointed out that some doctors in areas of high unemployment were signing off on disabilities for people who basically just had outdated skill sets. My impression was that in lieu of any real progressive safety net (basic income, etc.) citizens have started leaning heavily on disability insurance.

I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Do some Googling to see the other side of the argument about that episode.

Also, why is this being discussed at all? This (and shows like it) are basically Chicken Soup for the Soul in podcast form. They're emotional filler but I've fallen for discussing them like they should be some sort of hard-hitting journalism or policy discussions. In a discussion of media responsibility, does Ira really deserve to be the first head on the chopping block?

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